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Who’s kidding who? Turkish talks are about accession

“With Turkey’s accession to the European Union, Europe will demonstrate that it is not a continent where civilizations clash but where they reconcile and make peace,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, at the ‘Europeans of the Year’ awards, organized by European Voice. Erdogan, who was voted ‘European of the Year 2004’ for having put Turkey on the path to reform, insists that accession will be the logical conclusion of the negotiations that he expects his country will start next year.

But the EU leaders, who are expected to announce in a fortnight their intention to open accession negotiations with Turkey, pretend that they are not talking about accession. Some of them – including the Dutch presidency officials – suggest that they are only talking about talks.

Ankara will get no guarantee at the 16-17 December EU summit that the negotiations, which are likely to start next year, will lead to accession.

The most disappointing message for Turkey at the summit could be, as the Dutch presidency suggests, that negotiations are part of an “open-ended” process whose outcome cannot be guaranteed beforehand.

If the European Commission or a third of member states consider that Turkey is in breach of the EU’s fundamental principles, such as democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law, it can demand that negotiations be suspended. So if the Turkish side does not comply with the EU’s conditions and principles, a new status for the EU-Turkey relationship could be contemplated.

In other words, the ghost of a ‘special partnership’, supported by those who do not want Turkey in the EU, will always be in the background.

There are still doubts in some EU capitals about whether Turkey is suited to joining the EU.

With Nicolas Sarkozy likely to contest the 2007 presidential elections in France, Ankara is right to worry about an open-ended process, as the new leader of the biggest French party, the UMP, opposes Turkey’s membership bid. In Germany too, elections may turn the tide against Ankara’s ambitions. The Christian Democrat opposition, leading in the opinion polls, is against Turkey’s accession. Austria is likely to continue to be hostile to Turkey’s membership and Cyprus will remain volatile on the issue.

These doubts will not prevent accession negotiations from being launched, as they have more to do with Turkey’s suitability ever to join the EU than to meeting the conditions for starting negotiations.

But if not properly addressed, these doubts could put off Turkey’s accession to the Union.

Negotiations seek to bridge the legal and political rifts between the Union and the candidate. If the conditions posed by the EU are unacceptable to the candidate or if the accession terms are rejected by EU countries or citizens, by referenda, the process is stopped.

For most candidate countries, the logical conclusion of negotiations with the EU is accession. For Norway it was not. Its citizens decided, after talks were completed in 1994, that they would rather stay out.

But Turkey cannot afford to become another Norway, kept outside the Union by the unsettled doubts of some of the EU’s leaders or peoples. Such an outcome, following decades of painful adaptation to the EU’s myriad rules, would be alienating for Turkey.

On the other hand, EU leaders should not accept Turkey as a member of the Union despite the serious doubts of its peoples, just to live up to the principle of pacta sund servanda – what was agreed was agreed. That would backfire and widen the gap between citizens and leaders to dangerous proportions. It could spell the end of citizens’ tacit confidence that the EU operates to their benefit.

That leaves only one option: heads of state and government must take on their leadership responsibility. They should explain to their citizens why it is good for the Union – and for its peoples – to have Turkey as a member. They should alleviate people’s doubts by arguing why the decision to enlarge to Turkey is good and not by saying that negotiations do not have to lead to accession anyway.

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